IT Experts - Let's talk small business servers

[GunnyFreedom]

I will now be recommending new hardware for his BOS that will not suffer such issues in the future.

I'm looking at a middle form-factor desktop (enclosure is too small for a full tower), two 500-750GB hard drives and keep a constant mirror as a backup, as well as an external backup. Win7 Pro (more reliable than Win8), and the client will have to bring his POS vendor in to back up their application data, install the server software on the new machine, and load the application data on the new server. My primary concern will be bulletproof reliability. The BOS is right in the bar area so there is heat, moisture, and physical impact to think about.

Usually a commercial BOS uses a Dell Commercial tower. Dell commercial is way more reliable than Dell home line. I'm not sure Dell Commercial even makes a middle form factor (flat) server.

I'm looking for a form factor at or less than ~20" wide, ~22" back, and ~8" tall with a good optical and at least 2 HD bays. BUS width is more important than address space, being a server; but the most important thing is bulletproof reliability.

I am going to start looking at Dell and Compaq commercial lines (their home lines suck hard, but their commercial lines have been pretty reliable in my experience). Lenovo used to be a reliable marque, but I understand their reliability is falling apart.

I am capable of hand-building a server, but a one-off hand-build is just not optimal for servicing in a commercial environment.

Any of y'all have experience with a platform that you note for exceptional reliability?

I want to save the client money, but he is willing to pay for it if the result is extraordinary reliability.

Most towers I can also just lay sideways, so anything less than full-size tower should be fine.

HP ProLiant has a reputation for reliability, and their commercial line does not do all that proprietary nonsense that their home line does.

Intel has an intriguing line of small business servers, but I do not have reliability data on them.

IBM has a reputation for reliability, but reports from the field say different unless you get into the $10k+ lines, which just isn't going to happen here.

Dell Commercial, similar to HP Commercial, is far and away better than Dell Consumer; and they own most of the small business server market, but they still like to fail hard drives, power supplies, USB ports etc. This can be ameliorated by getting one with no hard drives and dropping some fancy Hitachi drives into it, Hitachi's have far and away a lower failure rate than any other brand running right now.

Some of y'all work in environments where you deal with medium spec servers. 99% of the middle-tier servers I see are Dell commercial, and most of the top tier servers I deal with are rack-mount, so I have little data to compare via personal experience. I could make a proper argument for a rackmount server, actually, as he does have a rack about 8' away, I would just need ~16' worth of VGA cable and USB for mouse and keyboard but that's nothing. A rackmount server is a bit much for 4 POS terminals though.

Since this is my first totally local all-by-myself customer, I want to do right by him. Honestly, I already have about 4 machines in mind that would do the job sufficiently, and were I not trying to make an extra-good impression here I'd just put a couple of those in a proposal and be done with it.

If someone gives me a bit of knowledge that leads to improving my services, I am willing to pay a consult fee; but until I get better established here it sadly won't be the most exorbitant consult fee you ever received.

Thanks!

[GunnyFreedom]

I actually like the Lenovo ThinkServer RS140 1U rackmount, although if I was going rackmount I'd really want SAS drives instead of SATA. However at $531.99 for a Lenovo rackmount server it's hard to go wrong.

This is an unusual case where a rackmount might just work really well. Though I plan to give him the option of rack or desktop.

But in this case, the server is set right on the back side of the bar, and IMHO the further the server is away from liquids the better. And he already has an existing rack in which he has a switch and a patch panel and plenty or room for a 1U server.





So $531.99 for the server, +$200 for 2 1TB SATA drives, $7 for a 16' VGA cable, $10 for a 16' USB extension, $200 for a good monitor with integral USB hub, $30 for a mouse, keyboard, and keyboard condom, $140 for Win7 Pro,

Total around $1120.

Can skimp on HDD capacity and save $100 (dual 500GB), skimp on the monitor and save another $50 would get the price point under $1000.

[helmuth_hubener]

You could get an HP blade enclosure with 16 blades in it, each with 16GB ram, dual 72G hard drives, and dual-quad core xeons for $3,000. Get a couple blades and one for back up. Blade servers are pretty nice. If you're looking for reliability. Easy to switch if something goes wrong! Or, to upgrade years down. http://www.ts.avnet.com/uk/vendors/h...nagers_mid_biz

If you like Dell and don't need much power, you can get a R220. Get the full 5-year warranty (I think that's the longest term they'll let you buy). Or just buy two, and keep one as backup (as with the blade solution). For no/low-downtime maximum reliability, having an identical configured box all ready to go is as good as you can get. If something goes wrong, you can use the backup for instantly-available spare parts, or, if need be, can just boot up the backup.

Might consider solid-state drives. Again, you're looking for reliability. Rapidly-moving parts are inherently... not.

Main advice: Actually think through the entire experience from the point of view of the user. How will he and his staff be using it? Then build the system to make it as easy and even pleasurable for them to use as possible. That is: do the software, not just the hardware. Don't just look at the specs. What does the customer care about that? Doesn't. Think of it from the customer's point of view.

[GunnyFreedom]

Now, HP Proliant makes a 1U rackmount with better features. Their HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 v2 Server for example, I can get bare bones at $450 refurbished or $730 new, and it has an SAS hdd interface, which means I can use the hyper-reliable Hitachi SAS drives.

I like the SAS hdd interface, but this server lacks an optical drive, which I think the client's POS vendor would find frustrating.



Now this fella,

HP ProLiant ML10 v2 - Xeon E3-1220V3 3.1 GHz - 8 GB - 1 TB runs $596 and it already has 8GB of RAM and a TB hdd. It's SATA only which, whatever, at this price point you aren't really looking at SAS anyway.



Add $100 for a second TB drive for a mirrored backup (probably RAID configure it so if all hell breaks loose just swap the 2 drives and keep pressing on) $200 for mouse keyboard and keyboard condom. At $896 this comes to an absurdly reliable small business server that would likely press on through the apocalypse so long as you could find power to run it.

[presence]

I just built two AMD systems from tiger direct. They're both faster than that server and I paid $550 combined for both machines.

I used old heavy duty 2002 dell cases completely gutted.

500W bronze PSU
Micro ATX AMD APU motherboards @ $50 budget
7300 AMD APUS
8 gig RAM
256 gig SSD
DVDR
120mm noctua

dual booting lubuntu / linux cinnamon mint

You could upgrade them each to the new 5.0 GHz 8600 chips for another $100 each

[FunkBuddha]

Get a small NAS that supports mirroring and iSCSI and put it in a safe location away from bumping, spills, etc. Buy 3 identical disks and put two of them in the NAS. Keep the other as a spare. Configure the NAS to email you in the event of a failure.

Then buy two low end identical workstations. Put a small SSD (60GB?) in each. Configure one of them to boot, mount the disk from the NAS and run then the app. Configure the app to keep its data on the remote disk. Once configured, shutdown the machine and take an image of it. Apply the image to the other machine. Also, copy the image up to the NAS and keep a copy somewhere else.

You should be able to do all of this for well under $1500 in hardware.

Now in the event of the inevitable failure of the machine at the bar, you can quickly recover the customer by putting in the identical machine so the customer has little downtime. Also, if you show up to fix the disk in the NAS before there is a major problem, they'll think you're awesome.

[GunnyFreedom]

You could get an HP blade enclosure with 16 blades in it, each with 16GB ram, dual 72G hard drives, and dual-quad core xeons for $3,000. Get a couple blades and one for back up. Blade servers are pretty nice. If you're looking for reliability. Easy to switch if something goes wrong! Or, to upgrade years down. http://www.ts.avnet.com/uk/vendors/h...nagers_mid_biz

If you like Dell and don't need much power, you can get a R220. Get the full 5-year warranty (I think that's the longest term they'll let you buy). Or just buy two, and keep one as backup (as with the blade solution). For no/low-downtime maximum reliability, having an identical configured box all ready to go is as good as you can get. If something goes wrong, you can use the backup for instantly-available spare parts, or, if need be, can just boot up the backup.

Might consider solid-state drives. Again, you're looking for reliability. Rapidly-moving parts are inherently... not.

Main advice: Actually think through the entire experience from the point of view of the user. How will he and his staff be using it? Then build the system to make it as easy and even pleasurable for them to use as possible. That is: do the software, not just the hardware. Don't just look at the specs. What does the customer care about that? Doesn't. Think of it from the customer's point of view.

I wouldn't know what to do with a blade server, tbh, and his rack is lucky to have 4U available certainly not 10U, and most of these things are in the multiple thousands of dollars. He's only running 4 registers. Not really enterprise level stuff.

I'm really not feeling the Dell. Seen too many failures to justify paying almost as much as an HP Proliant. Get into an Optiplex or Precision with dual HD bays and my price point is equivalent to the Proliant but without the reliability.

SSD is great for speed, eventually they stop writing though. Cost factor it seems better to me to mirror HDDs and just swap them around for another $100 every 3-4 years or so, with the HDD cost continuing to plummet in the future. I can cycle out 5 or 6 HDDs for the cost of installing just 2 SSDs.

I am exactly thinking about the user. That's why I'm leaning towards a rackmount. His is an extremely unique situation where his server is in the middle of an active bar, and he actually has a rack, mounted on the wall near the ceiling 8' away diagonally. Normally for this level server I would never consider a rackmount.

User experience is one thing, but getting the BOS out from a bunch of flowing liquids is something the owner is likely to appreciate. A rackmount server would be slightly more difficult for loading software or thumb drives, as you would have to get a stepladder to access the optical drive. However in a commercial situation like this, the owners often like the idea of making it more difficult to access such things, at it means his employees are less liable to break it.

Usually in a food service type environment, there is an actual back office where the back office server is kept, away from heat food and liquids. My thinking of a rackmount is my solution to his "in the middle of the bar" problem.

I keep going back to look at the Dell Poweredge rackmount, and the cheap version has a Celeron processor. When you go spec for spec it actually ends up more expensive than the Lenovo. Half the RAM, half the HDD space and I'm paying $929 -- only if I get Dell Credit -- or $1312 cash money. Spec for spec the Lenovo beats this hands down, and the Lenovo is more reliable. Not to mention I hear tell now Dell rack servers are starting to only work with Dell branded HD's. Not something I want to get into.

[presence]

I'd still be inclined to buy an empty rack mount case:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=1958&csid=_61

AMD MB and 7850k APU
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...40881&csid=_61

+ RAM and HD


Why pay for "Leveno" "Dell" or "HP" to put their branding and advertising on your box?


I prefer to buy 7 main components separately:

case - no frills
psu - "bronze" 500w
mobo - microatx unless you can justify more
chip - I really like the AMD 7000 series APU's
ram - hard to justify more than 8gb unless you're managing 100k cell spreadsheets.
hd - ssd is the future; much more impact resistant; longer lasting
fan - one 120mm, set full speed in bios

You can usually find a good mobo/chip/ram combo deal; sometimes good psu/case deals too. You can beat the cost and quality of a "name brand" machine every time. If any of the components go they're warranted by the manufacturer.

[GunnyFreedom]

I just built two AMD systems from tiger direct. They're both faster than that server and I paid $550 combined for both machines.

I used old heavy duty 2002 dell cases completely gutted.

500W bronze PSU
Micro ATX AMD APU motherboards @ $50 budget
7300 AMD APUS
8 gig RAM
256 gig SSD
DVDR
120mm noctua

dual booting lubuntu / linux cinnamon mint

You could upgrade them each to the new 5.0 GHz 8600 chips for another $100 each

I do like this idea, the issue being for commercial POS you want to go off the shelf as much as possible. POS vendors like RADIANT and MICROS don't do much in the way of writing for heavily custom configurations. I'd be looking for the most common forms of everything, like Intel Xeon processor, and Windows 7.

What I REALLY like about this suggestion is having it cheap enough to have a spare server for swapping for outages. Redundant servers, redundant drives; no matter what goes wrong I can have them back up in minutes.

Customers with mission critical POS applications LOVE getting back up in just minutes. Especially with zero data loss.

I dunno if something like this can be done totally off the shelf, but I love the idea.

Hand building a server for a commercial POS application is something that is generally not done.

I do not know if the MICROS POS server application can tolerate too much customization.....but I can't imagine it needs too much other than a common processor, a Windows 7 environment, and a good network connection. That's the problem though, as a non-MICROS employee, they don't let me in on the requirements for their POS Server Application.

[GunnyFreedom]

I'd still be inclined to buy an empty rack mount case:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=1958&csid=_61

AMD MB and 7850k APU
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...40881&csid=_61

+ RAM and HD

This forum board would suggest that the MICROS POS app will run in an AMD environment..

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1680452

[presence]

ok so even if you can't go AMD (which I'm personally partial to)...

get the empty 2u rack mount case for $70

Then put a i5 bundle in it:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...45&CatId=11497

for $299

[GunnyFreedom]

Get a small NAS that supports mirroring and iSCSI and put it in a safe location away from bumping, spills, etc. Buy 3 identical disks and put two of them in the NAS. Keep the other as a spare. Configure the NAS to email you in the event of a failure.

Then buy two low end identical workstations. Put a small SSD (60GB?) in each. Configure one of them to boot, mount the disk from the NAS and run then the app. Configure the app to keep its data on the remote disk. Once configured, shutdown the machine and take an image of it. Apply the image to the other machine. Also, copy the image up to the NAS and keep a copy somewhere else.

You should be able to do all of this for well under $1500 in hardware.

Now in the event of the inevitable failure of the machine at the bar, you can quickly recover the customer by putting in the identical machine so the customer has little downtime. Also, if you show up to fix the disk in the NAS before there is a major problem, they'll think you're awesome.

The POS App is proprietary, I don't have the access to customize it like that, and MICROS hourly charges are absurd to bring an in-house tech on site. This may be over-engineered for what he needs.

I've actually considered a solution similar to this for a high-volume mission critical store similar to an Olive Garden. This one is really a one off mom & pop bar. I expect a lot of work to come from this word-of-mouth, and I think I might consult with you when I get a client whose volume justifies a solution this heavily engineered.

This gentleman is currently running about ~$350 worth of hardware, and I'm figuring a tough sell to push $1000. Now a high volume store can spend as much as $5000-$8000 for BOS hardware. When I get a high volume client like that I think I'll be consulting you on a setup like this. I've done a little with NAS, but drawing it up from scratch would help to have someone knowledgeable.

Don't think it's appropriate for this solution though. Two HDDs and get the server off the bar should be plenty in this case, and for his price point.

[presence]

I actually like the Lenovo ThinkServer RS140 1U rackmount, although if I was going rackmount I'd really want SAS drives instead of SATA. However at $531.99 for a Lenovo rackmount server it's hard to go wrong.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...791&CatId=7195

$439

[GunnyFreedom]

ok so even if you can't go AMD (which I'm personally partial to)...

get the empty 2u rack mount case for $70

Then put a i5 bundle in it:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...45&CatId=11497

for $299

I'm really feeling this solution.

I was avoiding hand-built servers on account of commercial POS applications having a low tolerance for heavily customized components, I may need to give MICROS a call and see if they have any weird requirements that might trip me up. At this price point I can have a server and a spare server along with redundant HDDs for a truly bulletproof install.

The rackmount gets his equipment off the bar.

Looking now to see if SAS HDD interface jacks up the price too much, given that Hitachi SAS HDDs are basically the most reliable HDDs on the planet.

[GunnyFreedom]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...791&CatId=7195

$439

It is an i3 instead of Xeon, but it's not like this guy is running some crazy intense database, so the i3 is almost certainly more than enough. I like that the RAID controller on this one will run SAS HDDs, which cost a little more but just doggone refuse to fail.

I don't need the fancy hot-swap like the Proliant has on theirs. The internal bays are just fine. If they go down, I'm going to be the one fixing them anyway. It's not like a screwdriver takes a lot more effort than a thumb button.

SAS more than doubles the price of an HGST drive, I am guessing (only guessing mind you) that an HGST Ultrastar SATA will be almost as reliable as an HGST Ultrastar SAS

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...038735&CatId=8 1TB for $106

Sayyyy $440 + 2 1Tb HDD $200 + $200 monitor w built in USB hub + $30 for mouse keyboard and keyboard condom

$870 hardware + $140 Win7 Pro = $1010 out the door

Can shave $50 off the monitor to bring it down to ~$960 cost

[torchbearer]

Just wanted to ask, have you thought about using Zentyal for your Server OS? It claims to be a SBS replacement. Works with Outlook.
http://www.zentyal.com/zentyal-server/

[presence]

I like that the RAID controller on this one will run SAS HDDs, which cost a little more but just doggone refuse to fail.

I think the future is headed in this direction:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...101&CatId=9825

Everything is going to move to 2.5 SATAIII SSD's in 5.25 front load hot swap.

[presence]

Something that's often missed in a small business install is the surge protector. Spend $40 and find one with a 4000+ joules rating. Lightening sucks; businesses don't get to shut down when its storming.

Another thing to consider is that a refurbished monitor in a POS setting is a great place to cut $100 off cost. This isn't graphics design, medical, or personal primary.

[GunnyFreedom]

Presence, what do you think of this?

Refurbished scratch and dent, $290 total including memory and 8x 72GB SAS HDD

Not a big fan of the 8x 72GB HDD setup but I could concatenate 4 each of them and then mirror the two virtual HDDs.

Or at that price I could just get different SAS HDDs and still be ahead of the Lenovo new.

He's only got 62GB of data now, and he's been running a couple years.

HP ProLiant DL380 G5 Rack Server System (B-grade Scratch and Dent) 2 x (Intel Xeon 5160 3.0GHz 2C/2T) 8GB FB DDR2 667,PC2-5300 8 x 72GB 10000RPM 2.5" SAS RCHPDL380-G5-N3

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16859108282

^^^ That's the important bit

Plus 2x HP 300GB SAS 2.5" hot swappable @ $72 each

http://www.serversupply.com/products...U9kaAvpq8P8HAQ

19" display w USB hub (HP Branded for a bonus) $50

http://www.celire.com/index.php?main...ucts_id=126856

Cabling input devices and covers, ~$50

$290 Server + $144 HDD + Display $50 + HID $50

$534 for all hardware

+ $140 Win7 Pro

$674 out the door

[GunnyFreedom]

Just wanted to ask, have you thought about using Zentyal for your Server OS? It claims to be a SBS replacement. Works with Outlook.
http://www.zentyal.com/zentyal-server/

I can't even begin to speculate if the MICROS proprietary POS server app will run in any system other than Windows. I sincerely doubt it will. These things are usually written by a handful of people who do anything but programming, chained to tables in a basement somewhere. They tend to get it working in one system and then ignore it until it starts breaking 3-4 OS iterations down the road.

[GunnyFreedom]

Something that's often missed in a small business install is the surge protector. Spend $40 and find one with a 4000+ joules rating. Lightening sucks; businesses don't get to shut down when its storming.

I couldn't agree more. Even better, a BOS should be connected to a UPS. I admit that I neglected to look and see if his rack already had a UPS installed. I know it had surge protectors, but who builds a network rack without a UPS? LOL I've seen it. SOmething to upsell him on.

Another thing to consider is that a refurbished monitor in a POS setting is a great place to cut $100 off cost. This isn't graphics design, medical, or personal primary.

Yeah, I agree with this too. I just spent the last 45 min or so picking a better monitor. Came up with a good one for $50. Not that I give a whit about branding, but the branding matching the server can be a nice touch.

[CPUd]

The POS App is proprietary, I don't have the access to customize it like that, and MICROS hourly charges are absurd to bring an in-house tech on site. This may be over-engineered for what he needs.

I've actually considered a solution similar to this for a high-volume mission critical store similar to an Olive Garden. This one is really a one off mom & pop bar. I expect a lot of work to come from this word-of-mouth, and I think I might consult with you when I get a client whose volume justifies a solution this heavily engineered.

This gentleman is currently running about ~$350 worth of hardware, and I'm figuring a tough sell to push $1000. Now a high volume store can spend as much as $5000-$8000 for BOS hardware. When I get a high volume client like that I think I'll be consulting you on a setup like this. I've done a little with NAS, but drawing it up from scratch would help to have someone knowledgeable.

Don't think it's appropriate for this solution though. Two HDDs and get the server off the bar should be plenty in this case, and for his price point.

As opposed to imaging the drives on the clients, you could have a linux as the host OS on the rackmount and a Windows VM for the client app. Run a thin client at the POS and netboot the VM.

[presence]

Presence, what do you think of this?

$290 Server + $144 HDD + Display $50 + HID $50

$534 for all hardware

+ $140 Win7 Pro

$674 out the door

I don't think your customer has any need for 8 drive bays. DDR2 667 is 2002 technology.



I'll steer you towards a built 2U rack box with a $50 microatx mobo, i5 chip, $60 @ 8 gigs of DDR3 1866 and two corsair or similar 120G SATAIII ssd; every time unless you can tell me he needs something special.





$50 19" display is great. I'm looking at two of them

[torchbearer]

I can't even begin to speculate if the MICROS proprietary POS server app will run in any system other than Windows. I sincerely doubt it will. These things are usually written by a handful of people who do anything but programming, chained to tables in a basement somewhere. They tend to get it working in one system and then ignore it until it starts breaking 3-4 OS iterations down the road.

If it is a sql, it may not be as horrid as you may think.

[GunnyFreedom]

As opposed to imaging the drives on the clients, you could have a linux as the host OS on the rackmount and a Windows VM for the client app. Run a thin client at the POS and netboot the VM.

I can tell you for an absolute bona-fide certified golden true fact that this is the future of POS. I'm just not ready to leap out to the bleeding edge on my first local all-by-myself no-platforms no-subcontracts client. I want to build a reputation with the local business owners for reliability before I start venturing out to the bleeding edge of current POS technology. POS tech tends to be very conservative on adoption for a reason. Most end users do not have the overhead budget to experiment, and basically nobody knows how to work off of deli tickets anymore, calculate taxes, or count out change, much less keep inventory and so on.

[GunnyFreedom]

If it is a sql, it may not be as horrid as you may think.

MICROS is owned by Oracle now. Even if it could be made to work (via WINEskin etc) I doubt MICROS/Oracle would support it, and I also doubt that the end user would have the first clue what to do on a POSIX desktop.

However I will be moving towards virtualization in the future. At that point all bets are off and I can run nearly any tootin system I want in the under layer.

[FunkBuddha]

Personally, I'd stay away from hardware RAID unless you need the performance. I'm fairly certain Windows 7 supports a software mirror. RAID controllers commonly fail and replacing them can be a bitch. Why have another single point of failure if you don't need it?

Drive Bender is also pretty sweet for software mirroring on Windows

[GunnyFreedom]

I don't think your customer has any need for 8 drive bays. DDR2 667 is 2002 technology.



I'll steer you towards a built 2U rack box with a $50 microatx mobo, i5 chip, $60 @ 8 gigs of DDR3 1866 and two corsair or similar 120G SATAIII ssd; every time unless you can tell me he needs something special.





$50 19" display is great. I'm looking at two of them

This building my own system is turning out more expensive than just buying one.

ULTRA Dual 2.5" Internal/External HDD/SSD Enclosure for 3.5" Bay - RAID, Hot Swappable, External Docking, Supports 2x 2.5" SATA HDD/SSD, LED Indicators, Brushed Aluminum


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2ovV.yO6FvPBag


$29.99


Corsair Force LS CSSD-F240GBLSB 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)


http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Produc...HN4aAga-8P8HAQ


$104.99 x 2 = $208.88


2U Intelligent Green Saving LCD Display & Fan Control
(1x5.25"+ 4x3.5"+3x2.5" HDD Bay) Rackmount Chassis w/ Lock Door


http://www.plinkusa.net/webG252S.htm


$95.00 + $25.00 shipping = $120.00


Intel® Core™ i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core CPU/Gigabyte 8 Series Micro-ATX Motherboard/4GB DDR3 1866 Kingston HyperX Fury Red Memory Bundle


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...45&CatId=11497


$319.99


LG GTB0N Super Multi - Disk drive - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM - 8x/8x/5x - Serial ATA - internal - black


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...63680&CatId=89


$26.99


2U Chassis AC 110/220 Replacement Power Supply


http://www.diablocable.com/2u-chassi...GaUaAp3i8P8HAQ


$94.95


(currently at $800.80)


+ $50 monitor


+ $50 cables mouse keyboard keyboard condom


$900.80


+ $140 Win7 Pro


$1040

and I've only calculated for shipping on the case.

[GunnyFreedom]

Personally, I'd stay away from hardware RAID unless you need the performance. I'm fairly certain Windows 7 supports a software mirror. RAID controllers commonly fail and replacing them can be a bitch. Why have another single point of failure if you don't need it?

Drive Bender is also pretty sweet for software mirroring on Windows

I think that's a good call. All the food service BOSes I've worked on do it in software. And the server demands are incredibly light in this environment, performance is really not an issue.

[presence]

Show me anything close in the rack server market with an i5 chip and two @ 240 SSDs in it for $1040.